Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have two questions with regard to the food processing sector. You may well have smiled at my attendance at the Wimmera field day, but I can assure you I have attended the Wimmera field day for some 20 years now, on a very regular basis. I attend all the field days around Victoria. I am very well known, I must say, in those parts of Victoria. I attend the Liberal Party stand and, I venture to say with modesty, I am very popular. It is a very well attended stand. The National Party also have a stand at the Wimmera field days and I pop over to say hello to my colleagues in the National Party stand.

But one thing I notice is that never in all my term has there ever been a Labor Party stand at the Wimmera field days—never. They have never bothered to turn up, not once. They cannot find a country representative anywhere. Why wouldn’t the Labor Party now have a stand at the Wimmera field days, or any of the field days across Victoria? It is obvious why they do not: they do not really have any true rural representatives, and nor do they have any care for the farm gate and the farmers. They never have—not this government, not the previous Labor government and certainly not the one before that, which was the Whitlam government. So I make that point.

My question, Minister, is: are you aware of any other scheme in the world which includes waste water emissions as liable scope 1 emissions for food processors, in particular for meat processors, for which, I am informed, waste water emissions are the greatest emitting element of the sector?